We happened to watch The Day the Earth Stood Still and during the opening credits, I was happily surprised to see Bernard Herrmann’s name. I saw the film many years ago, but didn’t realize that one of the main reasons it probably stayed in my mind was his score.

Of course, he also wrote a lot of music for Hitchcock:

“I am firmly convinced, and so is Hitchcock, that after the main titles you know something terrible must happen. The main title sequence tells you so, and that is its function: to set the drama.”

The last film he worked on was Taxi Driver, and Scorsese says he’s responsible for the brilliant little reverse audio snippet at the end, when Travis Bickle thinks he sees something in his rear-view mirror.